My mom is a very devout Catholic, but when she hears stuff like this she gets... rather irate. Here she is, a cantor, lector, and eucharistic minister. She was also a single mother and head nurse of her unit (medical school being too expensive when she was college-age). Anyone who tells her she's supposed to sit down and shut because she's a woman gets an earful.

She once told me that she'll never read that section of Paul's letters at church. She refuses.

I'll say this for the nuns--they taught my mom a surprising amount of independence.